


Distance Between Us (sharpens me like a knife)

by palateens



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Blood, Break Up, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Racism, Racism, Recreational Drug Use, Shotgunning, Tattoos, Trans Male Character, fuck POC being socialized to only want white people, it's like super gross tbh, questionable tattooing methods, there's a rhyme to my reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-06 21:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12826788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palateens/pseuds/palateens
Summary: There’s lots of places where the grooves in their scars match up perfectly. Like maybe they could sail through this storm together.





	Distance Between Us (sharpens me like a knife)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katarama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/gifts).



> this is for my beautiful, amazing, ambiguous kissing bud who makes my day like all the fucking time. I love you so much. 
> 
> see ends notes for a disclosure on the tattooing practices in this fic (seriously, read it)

Lardo dips her tattoo machine into the dark green ink cap. The rotary roars in her hand. She uses her left hand as a guide, ghosting over the black outline she finished not ten minutes before. She’s spent days researching the best methods for perfect saturation and fades. Lardo takes a deep breath. 

“I can’t believe you’re letting me do this,” she murmurs. 

Kent groans. “I told you, you got this.” 

She snorts, rolling her eyes. 

“Look, you’ve done this like a million times before.” 

“With a  _ brush _ ,” she says. 

“Exactly, everyone’s gonna know how fucking kickass you are after this.” 

“And how stupidly naive you can be,” she chirps. 

“Nah, all they’ll be talking about is how to get another Lardo original,” he says with a confident smirk. 

She honestly can’t believe Kent has this much confidence in her artistic skills. She doesn’t even think she knows what she’s doing. But somehow, he sat through her freehanding a sketch in sharpie and letting her pass a liner through his back. 

Kent catches her skeptical gaze over his shoulder. His eyes are fierce and steely, yet distant. He doesn't look at her like a casual acquaintance who crashes at his place every once in a while. He watches her like a friend who knows how the story goes between them. As if running to him every time Shitty is, well, shitty makes sense. 

Maybe it does, in their own fucked up world. 

The thrum of the machine as she paints circles into Kent’s back is thrilling. Lardo inhales, sinking her machine carefully into his skin—mixing her essence with his blood. She exhales, following every stroke through with all the pain and admiration of two friends who implicitly get each other about things they’d rather forget. 

Thirty eight minutes later, Lardo’s phone rings. She sighs, turning her machine off. 

“Can you get that?” she asks Kent. “Put it on speaker.” 

“Yea, ok,” he says as he cracks his neck, stretching forward to grab her phone as it buzzes against his kitchen tile. 

He puts it on speaker before sliding it back in her direction. She stops it with her foot. Lardo watches him take a hit of the joint he’s been lazily hanging between his fingers all afternoon. 

She wonders if he realizes how beautiful he is. 

“Yea,” she says curtly to the phone. 

“Lards, where are you? It’s been a week,” Shitty asks. 

“Gone, Shits. Didn’t you get the memo? I’m too poor and uncivilized. I’m just too unbecoming of a future Knight.” 

She ignores the way Kent winces. She dips her mag into the paint water. Shitty sighs. Lardo can imagine the way he’s scratching the back of his neck. 

“Lards, you know my grandparents are full of shit. Fuck what they think,” Shitty says. 

“Oh I know,” she says tersely. “I’m just wondering if you know that.” 

“Lardo, my light, my effervescent love, I literally have no idea what you mean.” 

She breathes through what would otherwise be an ear piercing scream. She hears Kent mutter something in Spanish. She took French in high school, so she knows fuck all what he’s saying. But she can tell by his tone that it’s directed at Shitty, and it’s not nice. 

That’s enough to make her chuckle. She refocuses. He has enough faith in her to tattoo a coyote onto his back. Lardo has to prove his faith in her wasn’t in vain. She counts to ten in her head. 

She puts her mag on Kent’s back. It hasn’t shown signs of too much trauma yet. She can’t tell if that means she has a decent hand or if every cell in Kent’s body is accustomed to unbridled pain. As if even his skin is singing “harder, you call that pain? I can take more.” 

So much more. 

“Five years, Shits,” she says just loud enough for him to hear. “We’ve been together for five years. Why the fuck can’t you stand up to them?” 

“You know that’s not my style. I’d rather say ‘fuck you’ by wasting their fortune on pro-bono cases and fighting their corporate lobbyist friends.” 

Lardo sighs. The blinds over Kent’s kitchen sink are half open. Letting just enough light in so she can see the dust particles doing somersaults against underneath the current of A/C.  

“That’s great, Shits. But I’m not talking about your private rebellion and civil unrest. I’m asking when the fuck am I going to be treated like a human being around your family,” she says. 

Shitty doesn’t say anything for a while. Lardo lets the call continue, the sound of her needles injecting Kent the only thing keeping them all from falling into bleak silence.  

The sensation of his warm skin underneath her gloved hand is calming, gratifying. The colors are blending better than she expected. This might turn out alright. He might not walk around with an ugly muff of mutt for the rest of his life. 

They might not regret this. 

“Larissa, baby,” Shitty says finally. 

His voice cracks. It’s so dry and stark; it wrenches her eyes until they’re wetter than the blood she’s wiping off the latest of Kent’s succulents. 

“What?” she says raggedly. 

“It’s just how they are. I can tell ‘em fuck you until I’m black and blue but—”

“But I’m just the dirty FOB whore you found in college just to spite them?”

Kent tenses underneath her. She rubs a free spot on his back, coaxing him to drop it. They haven’t talked about why she’s here. She hasn’t been willing to admit how long she’s been running from this moment. 

“What? No of course not—”

“Shits, I can’t do this right now,” she interrupts him. “I know you have all this family baggage, and I respect it.” 

“I’m hearing a but,” Shitty says. 

“But they’re your family, not mine. I’m not gonna fight to sit at a table where everyone hates me.” 

“I don’t,” he says quietly. 

“It’s not enough for me anymore, Shits,” Lardo says. 

Kent mutters “good” under his breath. She finishes coloring the last succulent, turning her mag off. She wipes Kent off, disinfecting the tattoo. She carefully covers it in saran wrap, securing it in medical tape. She can color the coyote tomorrow. 

“So what are we gonna do, Lards?” Shits asks finally. 

She takes off her gloves and reaches for the phone. She draws her knees up to her chest, perching her chin on top of them. 

“I don’t know,” Lardo admits. 

“...when are you coming home?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“You...you can’t hide at Kent’s forever,” he says. 

“I’m not hiding,” she argues.

“You weren’t going to tell me you were there—”

“Because I don’t want to see you right now,” she snaps. “I don’t owe you an audience or a check in like you’re royalty or my parents or some shit—”

“Ok ok,” Shitty says, “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” 

“Fuck, of course I am,” Shitty insists. 

“For what?”

“For upsetting you.” 

She clenches her phone tightly. Kent hands her the joint. He kisses her temple for getting up. Lardo shivers, taking a big hit. She stays on the floor for what feels like eons, watching the smoke rings she makes float blissfully through the mid afternoon rays. 

“Do you get why I’m sick of your family?” she asks. 

“Because they’re racist assholes and you shouldn’t have to put emotional labor into changing them,” he says evenly.     

“Yea…” she relents. “I’m sick of losing my boyfriend every time we have to see them. And like, of having to cram myself into shitty dresses and pearls so they don’t call me a gold-digging succubus.” 

“Lards, I’m really sorry—”  

“I don’t wanna have kids with you if it means their own family will hate them,” she rasps. 

The silence from Shitty stretches on forever. 

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Shitty says. 

Lardo smiles ruefully. “Same here.” 

“I guess...this is it then?” 

A tear rolls down her face. Part of her really wanted him to fight for them. 

“Yea,” she says, body trembling. “Guess it is.” 

She hangs up without waiting for his response. Goodbyes are too kind for this situation. 

Kent nudges her, and she accepts his help off the floor. He holds his hand out for the joint. She shakes her head, taking a hit and pulling him closer. Kent takes the hint, getting so close their mouths brush against each other. He shotguns smoother than a vampire sucking the life out of someone. 

His arms find her waist. His fingers feel electric on her hips, resting there perfectly. 

“You ok?” he murmurs. 

Her eyes are half lidded, staring at his lips more than anything. 

“Eventually,” she answers honestly. “We’ve been through for months, basically. It’s just...official now.” 

“That sucks,” Kent says. 

Lardo shrugs. “Eh fuck him.” 

“You deserve better,” he says. 

She looks up at his eyes, not remembering the last time they looked this blue. She thinks of sharing hits with Jack back in college. She loved him, but she never trusted him to be this vulnerable. It was in the way Jack panicked whenever he thought someone needed him. 

He was just too fragile, near-sighted, to deal with the big stuff. He wasn’t Kent and he’d never be—just like Shitty. 

There were so many times that she thought she’d have to compromise something to get the kind of partner she wanted. She was ready and willing to give up pieces of herself to make Shitty happy, but he couldn’t do the same for her. She can hear her bà saying “never trust a white man” with a grave tone. 

Kent’s not really white, and he’s a man but he wasn’t socialized like one. He doesn’t take shit for granted like every dude she’s ever met. He gets what it feels like to be bisexual and feel like a failure,not queer enough or good enough to have the kind of love they deserve. There’s lots of places where the grooves in their scars match up perfectly. Like maybe they could sail through this storm together. Like maybe—  

Lardo shakes her head, brushing off her train of thought. 

“So do you,” she says. “And tattoos from people who actually know what they’re doing.”

“You know what you’re doing.”

“Barely,”

He shrugs like she didn’t just run the risk of scarring or infecting his back. “Practice makes perfect right? And it looks fucking awesome so far.” 

She takes another hit, and gestures him to show it to her. He turns around, stripping off an old Aces shirt. There’s still a lot of work left on the coyote itself. But the succulents and cactus flowers look soft and clean. There isn’t too much trauma to the skin, surprisingly. 

“It looks nice,” she admits. 

He blushes. “This is definitely the craziest thing I’ve ever done to impress a girl.”

“So I’m a  _ girl _ now, huh?”

Kent rolls his eyes, shrugging. “Craziest thing I ever did for an enby was give up a fuck buddy so they could date.” 

“Just that,” she chirps, poking him in the chest lightly as she closes the small distance between them. “Craziest thing you’ve ever done for a guy?” 

Kent huffs, “You know that one. Drove up to a school outside of Boston. Made a complete ass of myself. Ended up in the hospital after a major binge.” 

It’s her turn to wince. Now she feels guilty for dragging her Samwell era baggage right to Kent’s front door—  

“Don’t,” he says calmly. “That was a million years ago. I’m past it, honest.” 

Lardo nods. Her hand unconsciously traces over the saran wrap on Kent’s back. She can imagine how beautiful it’ll look when it’s done. His hand cups her chin. Their eyes are both red-rimmed and watery. She doesn’t need to be sober to know they both have a lot of shit they need to own up to. 

“You sure about that, pal?” she asks quietly. 

“Nah, I think I’m just as fucked as I’ll ever be,” he admits, dipping his head closer to her. “But I’ll manage. ‘Least I’m less lonely than back then.” 

“Fuck yea you are,” she says as she closes the gap between their lips. 

They work really well together, Kent and Lardo. It’s like he was born for her to adorn every inch of his skin in artwork. And like she was born to take his breath away as he worships every inch of her body. 

Lardo knows they could get lost in each other if they aren’t careful. But she isn’t too worried. She does her best artwork while high, and Kent’s the best kind of drug. 

**Author's Note:**

> fic title - lyrics from Hold Me Tight or Don't by Fall Out Boy 
> 
> IMPORTANT: DON'T TRY TO TATTOO YOURSELF OR OTHERS AT HOME  
> This fic is partially inspired by a story I heard two nights ago while working Black Friday. Just because my coworker survived the jankiest tattoo application ever doesn't mean you will.  
> And if you're a tattoo artist--feel free to cringe, I get it.


End file.
